Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Teresa M. Mares

Univ of California Press, Sep 23, 2025 - Business & Economics - 320 pages

Examining the essential role—and exploitation—of frontline workers across the food chain.

Consumers are demanding a healthier and more sustainable food system. Yet labor is rarely part of the discussion. In Will Work for Food, Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern and Teresa M. Mares chronicle labor across the food chain, connecting the entire food system—from fields to stores, restaurants, home kitchens, and even garbage dumps.

Using a political economy framework, the authors argue that improving labor standards and building solidarity among frontline workers across sectors is necessary for creating a more just food system. What would it take, they ask, to move toward a food system that is devoid of human exploitation? Combining insights from food systems and labor justice scholarship with actionable recommendations for policy makers, the book is a call to action for labor activists, food studies students and scholars, and anyone interested in food justice.

Contents

• Percentage of frontline food workers employed by sector of the food: 1
• chain 2023: 13
• Number of frontline food workers employed in the food chain 2023: 14
• Industrialization and Racialized Dispossession on the Farm: 20
• Cotton sharecroppers Greene County Georgia 1937: 26
• Mexican girl carrot worker Edinberg Texas 1939: 31
• Tomato pickers and allies of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers urge Wendys to join their awardwinning farmworkerled human rights initiative the...: 44
• Deskilling in the Assembly Line and on the Factory Floor: 48
• Female workers prepare Brite stackers shrink wrapping cans for shipping at NEFCOFidalgo packing plants in Ketchikan Alaska 1975: 54
• Migrant workers process green peppers on Uesugi Farms Gilroy California 2013: 57
• Pork processing worker at Triumph Foods St Joseph Missouri 2017: 62
• Packard trucks transporting California Sunkist oranges and lemons from Los Angeles to London: 73
• Warehouse Workers United protest Mira Loma California 2012: 91
• Deliveristas protest New York New York 2021: 94
• Vazquez grocery store Bronx New York 197778: 105
• Walmart protest Washington DC 2014: 111
• Supermarket meat department employee wearing a mandatory mask: 113
• Striking workers at Stouffers Restaurant Detroit Michigan 1937: 133
• Acknowledgments: 209

Bibliographic information

• Title: Will Work for Food: Labor Across the Food Chain
• Authors: Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern, Teresa M. Mares
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Univ of California Press, 2025
• ISBN: 0520391616, 9780520391611
• Length: 320 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / Economics / General; Business & Economics / Industries / General; Political Science / Labor & Industrial Relations; Social Science / Activism & Social Justice; Social Science / Agriculture & Food; Social Science / Anthropology / Cultural & Social; Social Science / Sociology / General